NunSlaughter – Angelic Dread

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Review by Jason Guest

Hells Headbangers

Release date: 24 June 2014

If you thought Metallica were taking a long time between albums, then you’ve never come across NunSlaughter. With their last full-length, Hex, released in 2007, it’s only now, seven years later – and twenty seven years into their existence – that album number four, Angelic Dread, has arrived. But there are significant differences between the master of procrastinators and this mob. First, NunSlaughter have released more music in those seven years as either a split or an EP than most bands do in a lifetime; second, none of their releases have ever been under par; and thirdly – and most importantly – not one of them has been some feeble attempt to win back any credibility lost due to mediocre attempts at “reinvention” or “experimentation”. Nope. Not a bit of it. NunSlaughter have stuck to their blasphemous, god-slaying guns since time began and not changed one iota. And unlike the many that have stagnated, NunSlaughter have long remained all the stronger for it.

With split releases and EPs, a band can survive by taking their time with the material, focussing on and refining fewer tracks than required for an album, and creating the impression that all that they produce is top quality. Where bands such as Down have turned to this approach with fans and critics lapping it up, NunSlaughter have gone the other way. Here we have fifteen tracks – only two of which cross the three-minute mark – of incendiary devil metal, each as vicious as the last and as biting as the next. And with a collection of new recordings of past material released only on 7” on a second disc, for those new to the band – and long-time fans wanting them all in one place – this is ideal. Difficult to identify a standout or best track, there are no surprises with Angelic Dread. It’s NunSlaughter. Filthy, grubby, blasphemous death metal. Nothing more, nothing less. And that’s all that was ever needed.

Nunslaughter – Angelic Dread8 out of 10

Track listing:

Disc One:

  1. Angelic Dread
  2. Looking Into The Abyss
  3. Twisted Spirit
  4. Crush The Guff
  5. Inner Beast
  6. The Lycanthrope
  7. Blood Drinker
  8. God
  9. Doomtown
  10. Don’t Mourn For me
  11. Infested
  12. Coffins And Crosses
  13. Three Nails, One Liar
  14. Death Beyond The Gallows
  15. One Bad Bitch

Disc Two:

  1. Emperor In Hell
  2. God Has Lied
  3. The Bog People
  4. Shadow World
  5. Healing The Possessed
  6. It Is I
  7. Phantom
  8. In The Grave Yard
  9. Black Horn Of The Ram
  10. Ouija
  11. Atheist Ways
  12. Cerebus
  13. Sickened By The Sight Of Christ
  14. Driving Out The Demons
  15. Midnight Mass
  16. Deathlehem